MotoGP GP of Spain – Circuito Angel Nieto
Both riders of Reale Avintia Racing team improved their lap times and the feeling with their Ducati Desmosedici bikes on the second day of practice for the Spanish Grand Prix and were satisfied with their progress. But nevertheless, Tito Rabat and Xavier Simeon expected to finish the crucial qualifying session with a better result.
Rabat has a very good race pace, which he showed it in FP4 where he finished seventh fastest and with a lot of confidence for the race.
For Simeon, the FP4 session was also very positive, as he felt very good on the bike. But just like his teammate, he has was not happy with his grid position.
The warm-up session on Sunday morning will be crucial to refine the set-up of the bikes and to be completely ready for the 25-lap-race, in which both are riders are determined to put up a fight, show their strong race pace and achieve a good result.
“It’s been a difficult weekend so far, but we’ve found a method to go faster and that’s why I’m happy. We had a very good pace in FP4, where I was able to see many things riding behind Dani Pedrosa. We are refining setting issues so we can finish the race in a good position. In qualifying, I was pushing harder and I crashed, which was a pity for the team and for me as well. Tomorrow I hope to make a good start and to recover positions step by step. We are only 17th on the grid, but I am still happy with the work we’ve done and the progress we made.”
“This morning we made an important step and it gave me a lot of satisfaction, so I had high expectations for qualifying. My goal for this race is to get closer to the top 15 and we have shown that we can do this. But in qualifying, with the highest temperatures of the day, we had problems with tyre grip and it was very difficult to ride. I expected to do much better. I had a hard time repeating my best time of the morning. We need to solve this grip problem if we want to make a good race”.
